1st to Die (Women's Murder Club 1)

“I think,” Nicholas Jenks finally answered, “that this fascinating interview has come to an end.” He held out his wrists. “Unless you’re intent on taking me away, my lunch is waiting.”

I nodded. “We’ll need to follow up. On your whereabouts. And on the gun.”

“Of course,” Jenks said, standing up. “And should you need any further cooperation — feel free to request it through my attorney.”

I assembled the photographs and put them back into the folder. Raleigh and I got up.

At that moment, the attractive strawberry blonde from the photographs walked into the room.

She was undeniably pretty, with gentle, aquamarine eyes, a pale complexion, long, free-flowing hair. She had a tall dancer’s body, and was dressed in thigh-length leggings and a Nike T-shirt.

“Chessy!” Jenks exclaimed. “These are officers from the San Francisco Police Department. My wife, inspectors.”

“Sorry, Nicky,” Chessy Jenks apologized. “Susan’s coming over. I didn’t know you had guests.”

“They were just leaving.”

We nodded stiffly, moved toward the door. “If you could locate what we talked about,” I said to him, “we’ll send someone by to pick it up.”

He gazed right through me.

I hated to leave without taking him in, and to have treated him with kid gloves. But we were still a few steps away from an arrest.

“So,” Chessy Jenks smiled and said, “has my husband finally gone homicidal?” She went up to Jenks, clasped his arm in a teasing way. “I always told him, with those creepy-crawler characters he writes about, it was inevitable.”

Could she know? I wondered. She lived with him, slept with him. How could she not be aware of what was going on inside his head?

“I truly hope not, Ms. Jenks,” was all I said.

Chapter 77

WHAT DID SHE MEAN BY THAT?” Chessy Jenks asked her husband, confused, after the police inspectors left the house.

Jenks brushed her away. He paced over to the large French doors leading out to the Pacific.

“Idiots,” he muttered. “Amateurs. Who the hell do they think they’re dealing with?”

He felt a prickly, stabbing heat racing over his shoulders and back. They were stupid, tiny-minded. Beetles. That’s why they were cops. If they had any brains, they’d be doing what he was doing. Living high over the Pacific.

“That’s why they dig landfills,” he replied distractedly. “A place for cops to feel at home.”

Chessy picked up the wedding photo from the coffee table and set it back in its rightful spot. “What did you do now, Nick?”

Why did she always drive him to this? Why did she always need to know?

She came over, looked at him with those lucid, patient eyes.

As always, his anger leaped up in a flash.

He didn’t even realize he had hit her.

It was just that suddenly his hand hurt and Chessy was sprawled on the floor — and the bamboo table on which the pictures were had toppled over — and she was holding her mouth.

He shouted, “Don’t you know when to keep away from me? What do you need, a road map?”

“Uh-uh, Nick,” Chessy said.

“Not here… not now.” “Not here what?” he was shouting. He knew he was shouting, losing control. That the staff might hear.